Padlock - closing up front face

[Roger]

At one point I modeled an old-timey padlock, but now can't find it. So I'm doing another one. Problem is, I can't quite close up front of it so it is a solid surface. The part that is giving me problems is the upper-right. I thought I was going to be able to have a 4 point patch and a 5 pointer, but the 5 point patch actually has six points, so I don't know how I'm going to fix this without creating a buch of extra patches. Also, it just kind of looks odd the way it is right now. I'm not sure that the splines are laid out right.

 

The other thing, now that I've learned about beveling, I really don't have a clue how to bevel something like this. Its fairly simple to build a bevel into something that is a simple lathe or extrude, but this is a bit more complex. Suggestions?

[robcat2075]

The easiest thing woudl be to build that shape with a path in phtoshop or illustrator and let the AI importer fill and bevel it for you.

 

To fill it manually, I might do it like this:

 

The green circles are hooks, not dead-end CPs.

 

After i filled it, I'd extrude the outer spline once and scale (making the purple line)and move it back a bit to make the bevel and extrudeit again and move it back farther to make the sides of the lock.

 

[Roger]

That's a good idea, I think I may have figured out how to do the bevel in AM though. What I did was extrude the shape once, then extrude again and scale it inwards. I was watching some AM vid/tute the other night and saw someone do something similar, I think this will help with my beveling problems. I'll use a copy/flip/attach to get the bevel on the other side, after I close the face in. No sense duplicating effort. I'm not sure if this is the best way or textbook way to do this type of bevel, but it seems like it will work.

[Roger]

Ok, I've closed off the face. There is some artifacting, but I think once I apply the material it will be less noticeable.

I've posted a 2nd pick as well where I've fixed most of the funky looking artifacts. Let me know what you think.

[Roger]

Here's the padlock with the front face closed and most of the artifacts removed:

[robcat2075]

Here's the padlock with the front face closed and most of the artifacts removed:

 

Why do i see splines sticking out on the side?

[Roger]

Here's the padlock with the front face closed and most of the artifacts removed:

 

Why do i see splines sticking out on the side?

 

I'm not sure what that is. It almost looks like that part of the padlock is in wireframe/shaded mode. No clue how that could have happened. Maybe a glitch from the renderer, or something like that? It looked fine when I did it before.

[largento]

One possible solution is to cheat. :-)

 

Here I created the keyhole with a face on it and used that same outer spline as the front of the padlock. This way I didn't have to continue the splines all through the mesh. You can see in the quick render that as long as it all remains flat on the front, there's no evidence that the keyhole isn't attached.

 

 

I did this on one of the panels of my Star Trek bridge set and it saved me a lot of frustration.

[robcat2075]

Those unneeded splines could be hooks as well.

[Rodney]

One possible solution is to cheat. :-)

 

Mark,

That is an elegant solution. Love it.

 

One thing to consider is the real object itself that is being represented.

Especially where the object is man-made the object will often provide useful clues as to how we can recreate the object in 3D.

Using Marks example for instance I could easily see a lock that had the keyhole as an added piece within the shell of the lock that would allow the lock itself to be disassembled and come apart for maintenance.

 

Of course, we'll tend to lose a lot of the symbology as we get closer to reality.

For instance, because having a keyhole on the front of a lock doesn't work particularly well we rarely see them on the front of padlocks these days:

(Google Search for Padlock images)

[Malo]

Hi,

It is possible to use Boolean Cutter too.

 

 

To close a surface hole directly in AM, there is an old plugin called "Cap" of "Media Circus". It does the same job as the plugin called "AI", but do not close the back of the model.

[Rodney]

Excellent suggestion Malo!

 

You know, I'm laughing at myself here because I'm usually really quick to suggest boolean cutters but in this instance the thought never even crossed my mind. Thanks for backing me up Malo. Booleans cutters can always use more attention.

[Malo]

You are right Rodney, the "boolean cutter" is very useful. For example in architecture, insert, move and scale a door or a window in a wall is very easy and fast with this tool. It allows to create kits.

[Roger]

Guess I'm going to have to practice more. That lock Malo did has quite an economical use of splines. I'm not sure I'll be able to approach that level for a while.